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" It's a lonely place when you get performances like that. I've just said in an interview that first of all I'd like to apologise to the supporters who travelled up because I can't defend that kind of performance. It will be a horrible trip home for everyone. A few words have been spoken at half-time and full-time, we're all in the same boat and we've all got to pull in the same direction. Whether it's myself, Ady (Williams), whoever it might be coming in, they need to perform better than that if they want to stay in the team.
" We just didn't defend crosses, I think that John Ward has done his homework and (Joe) Garner played off (Ben) Tozer's shoulder and caused him a lot of problems. He's got to step up to the plate now though, he's had a little bit of experience but he's got to learn from this. Today was a huge learning curve for him, the boy Garner got man-of-the-match and rightly so but you've got to defend crosses.
"Ben will come back stronger, I won't let his head go down but he needs to be told. For the second goal it was horrendous. Before the free kick came in I actually screamed at him to get touch-tight with his man. He still ignored it. I am not going to be too harsh on him because he is 17 years of age but he needs to step up to the plate. To be fair he has done that generally this season.
"I got a phone call from one of the national papers saying had I come out with a comment saying Ben Tozer is a better centre-back than Everton have at the club. I have never spoken to them before. Well, he was not worth a million pounds tonight.
" You have to be able to defend crosses and if you don't defend crosses then you will get punished. It doesn't matter what league you play in, and we didn't do it today. We were sloppy on the ball, our ball retention was poor and our shape at times wasn't how it should have been. We wanted to sit off and just let them come onto us with our two banks of four but we got all out of shape at times. It simply wasn't good enough and they have been told so. At the end of the day we're back in on Wednesday, back onto the training ground and we'll get ready for Southend away.
" We've prepped them right for tonight, we've prepped them well. We changed our tactics slightly, I didn't want our two wide players pushing onto their full-backs and leaving big holes. So what we said is that we would go with two banks of four, our two strikers split between centre-backs and full-backs and if we can get across to the full-backs then great. "
" If we can't then let the full-backs come to us and let them break us down. I thought that they did that at will and it wasn't good enough. Regardless of who is in charge, if you put in a performance like that then there is no way on this Earth that if they are not in the side on Saturday that they come and knock on mine and Ady's door to ask the reason why, they know.
" I went into the referee's changing room at the end just to ask why he changed his mind on the sending-off and all of a sudden now assistant referees are becoming a big part of the game. We'll let's hope that throughout the rest of the season they are as consistent as they were tonight, I've never seen an assistant referee make so many decisions for a referee. He waved play on and then because of the assistant putting his flag up he's then decided that it was a foul.
" If it was a free-kick then he deserved to go because he was the last man, but again, I need to see it on video before I make any comment about whether or not it was the right decision. We're going to be struggling for Saturday now, but again, at the end of the day, we'll find an eleven to go out there to start the game. Whatever eleven goes out though, they will need to make, well if they perform like they did today then you are looking at another 3-0 defeat.
" There are no positives to take out of this, well there are, I thought that Blair (Sturrock) and Barry Corr did OK when they came on and I thought that our three midfield players worked their socks off. You have to when you go down to ten men though and I think that John Ward needs to be congratulated on his tactical astuteness, if that's the right word. The boy Garner caused us a few problems and we couldn't deal with him, we'd better learn to start dealing with players like that because there are a lot more in the league.
" We've had some words, the boys know exactly how we are feeling, and once again all I can say is sorry to today's travelling supporters. I had a feel-good factor before the game and we started the game brightly. I thought that in the first ten minutes we caused them problems, we were the better side, and then for some reason we decide to do something that is not in the script. You start to do things like that and then all of a sudden you find yourself, the first goal I thought was an absolute joke.
" It's come from, Billy (Paynter) has given the ball away sloppily but then we had three chances to clear the ball out of the box. You look at the way they clear their balls, they were hitting the half-way line. I'm not going to make any excuses, we were pathetic and we were poor, Ady used the words in the dressing-room that it was men v boys at times. Saturday is about the only thing I can think of at the moment, we need a big, big improvement. Maybe the tank is empty but we can't use that as an excuse. I have been in the game for a long time and I don't think I have ever been at a club that has had such a bad run of injuries and suspensions at once. "